Wanna see something gross?

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Imagine a picture of a dead baby mouse here.

(I decided to remove the actual picture because it was creeping me out every time I checked my blog)

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That my friends is a dead baby mouse!

But not just any dead baby mouse, it's a dead baby mouse that I picked up in my bare hand along with it's two dead baby mice brothers. Auggggg!

I was cleaning Abby's closet and I pulled out the file cabinet that has been in her closet for the last couple of years. When I pulled it out a bunch of candy wrappers fell on the floor along with some little toys. Naturally I just picked up all of the trash to through away and while holding the trash in one hand I started sorting though the rest of the stuff on the floor with the other hand. I picked up a small item that in Abby's dimly lit room looked like it could be a game piece to one of Nate's games. Of course, on closer inspection, I discovered that it was in fact the shriveled up mouse remains pictured above. I dropped it, of course, screamed, of course, then noticed one of the mouse's brothers among the trash in my other hand. More dropping, more screaming. In the end I found a total of three dead baby mice, all of which I had held in my hand. After scrubbing my hands with soap and photographing the mouse for your viewing pleasure, I disposed of them all.

About a year ago we discovered two mice setting up house keeping. We set traps and caught them both quickly. One of them was caught in the middle of the night in a trap that was set under our bed. The snapping of a mouse trap is not the nicest way to be woken up in the middle of the night. Anyway, apparently Mr. and Mrs. Disgusting Mousie had already added to their little family before they were discovered and disposed of. Should I feel bad that their three tiny infants starved to death when mommy and daddy never came home? Well, guess what, I don't. I'm relieved that the babies died before the reached sexual maturity and started breeding with each other and completely took over my house. I'm all about kindness to animals and loving all of God's creatures until they start coming into my house uninvited. Then watch out!

An American Girl, A Sharpie, and Acne Medicine

"How are these three things related?" you might ask. Well, I'll tell you The first is a doll. Clearly right. But not just any doll. A very expensive doll. An American Girl Doll. I, or should I say "Santa" does not usually buy expensive dolls, but I happened to be in Chicago, and happened to go to the American Girl Doll store and happened to get a little caught up in the excitement of the whole thing. Really, if you were there you would understand. Anyway, I had a little talk with Santa and it was decided that Abby and Gracie just must have American Girl Dolls for Christmas. Of course I had concerns. After Gracie's famous haircut, which she gave herself, she gave one of her dolls a hair cut to match. So I wasn't sure that an expensive doll was a good choice for Gracie or for anyone who would have their expensive doll in the same house as Gracie. But I decided that under my oh-so-very-watchful-eye all would be well. Christmas morning came, and there they were, two beautiful dolls for two very happy little girls. Fortunately Gracie seems to have grown out of her destructo stage, and takes really good care of her dolls now. Unfortunately McKay as grown into his destructo stage. This is where the sharpie comes in. Where Gracie's weapon of choice seemed to be scissors, McKay seems to be more comfortable with a permanent marker in his hands. The day I found Julie, that's Gracie's doll, laying on the floor with her face covered in black marker was the day that I realized that maybe, just maybe, my oh-so-very-watchful-eye was not as watchful as I thought. Okay, that's not true. This is something that I had known all along, but whatever. I was so frustrated I could have strangled someone. By someone, I mean McKay, the one with the sharpie. So to avoid strangling him, which I knew I would most likely regret eventually, I said to myself, in true Scarlett O'hara style " I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow. " and I put the doll on the top of my computer desk and left it, safe from further attacks. That was about a month ago. During the last month I would see Julie every time I walked into my room. I would think to myself, I should really do something about that. Then, I would think, naugh, maybe later. I considered sending her to the American Girl Hospital. No, I not making that up. They really have a hospital where you can send your doll if they are injured in any way or even just for routine check ups/cleanings. The doll will be sent back to you good as new wearing a hospital gown and ID bracelet. Cute right, but how much was that going to cost me. I don't know. I didn't check. What I did do....finally, is go to my trusty friend Google. I was then taken to a website that has answers from real people to all of life's most important questions, like... "How do I remove sharpie from an American Girl Doll's face?" Now this is where the acne med. comes in. A lot of acne meds like "proactive" or the cheaper "acne free", that you can get a Wal-Mart, have the active ingredient Benzol Peroxide. It's great for acne and apparently for removing permanent marker from doll's faces, careful though, it will also bleach clothing. I used the acne free with 10% benzol peroxide, put a generous amount on the markered areas, put the doll under a light and waited to three days. That's right three days. The website said to wait a couple of hours, but after a couple of hours I only noticed a small amount of fading in one spot, so I reapplied and waited some more. There is only one little spot the I need to treat again, but I'm very happy with the results. As for the bleached clothing. McKay found the acne med and squirted the whole tube on himself and totally ruined a new shirt. $100 doll saved, $12 shirt ruined, and a tube of acne free empty. Not a terrible trade off. Good thing I used the cheap stuff.

Book worms

I love that my kids love to read! There have been times that I have had to ban Nate from reading until after he has played outside. Today is a nice day and Abby want to be outside but she didn't want to put her book down, so she is sitting on the swing reading. Last summer for the summer reading program at the library the kids had to read for 12 hours to get ticket to Eliches. Nate and Bryce finished in 2 days. Today we went to the library. I told the kids that they could each check out 2 books. We left with a total of 24 books! Nate was looking for "Inkdeath" and "The Battle at the Labyrinth". He had to be put on a wait list for both of them, so he got "Artemus Fowl" instead. These are all big books. As a kid and even as an adult, I was always intimidated by big books, and by big I mean any over 80 pages. Until I started Harry Potter about 8 years ago. Then I realized that I can read big books. I just finished a book with almost 1000 pages, not written for kids or young adults. A real big, real grown up book. I'm so glad that my kids aren't waiting until there 30 to realize how awesome reading is. Abby is moving in to chapter books. Her and Bryce love the "My Weird School" series. Bryce is ready to start Harry Potter, and I can't wait for him to get lost in it. Books rock, librarys rock, reading rocks!!!

A look back

I know it is the middle of march but I have so many Christmas pics that I didn't post and I just figured out how to do collages, so here they are. The first one is of the cookie party at Aunt Dixie's house. She, and her family made hundreds of cookies. Then all of the family came and decorated then ate hundereds of cookies. Soooo fun! The next collage is pics of the kids writing letters and wraping presents for some of our troops over seas. We got a letter back from one of them. It was a great project. The last four are pretty self expanitory. I love the picture of McKay with Santa.

The Crazy Lady Next Door

I would love to tell you a funny story about some wacky neighbor at this point, but unfortunately I am the crazy lady next door. DLS time is killing me. Yesterday I woke up at 7:55. Kids needed to leave for the bus by 8:18. I was out of cold cereal so I quickly whipped up some oatmeal and some how we made it. I was feeling pretty good about my abilities. Fast forward to today. I woke up at 7:45. 10 min earlier than yesterday so I should have been fine, but wait there were 3 extra kids. My friend's daughter broke her arm and has to go in for surgery this morning so I have her 3 other kids, a 10 year old, 2 year old and 9 mo old. Again, no cold cereal, so eggs and biscuits for 8 hungry children. Sill, I thought I was doing okay on time, and then suddenly I realized I wasn't. Kids were brushing their teeth, I happened to look out the window and saw my friend parking on my street to bring her daughter to the bus stop. She waved frantically at me so I opened the door to see what was up. She yells to me, "The bus is here!". The last thing I wanted to do this morning is load 8 kids into the car to bring 4 of them to school because they missed the bus. So, I started running through the house screaming, "The bus is here, the bus is here. Let's go, let's go. grab your stuff. You have to go now. Run, Run!!!". In the chaos I see Bryce grab his back pack and run out the door with no coat. It is seriously freezing out there so I, bra less, bare footed, and still in my pjs. grabed his coat and ran after him down the street. Just as I was rounding the corner the bus door closed. Luckily my friend waved the bus driver to open the door, I stepped onto the bus and handed Bryce his coat. I hope the warmth of his coat will be worth the emotional scars that may have been caused by his mother coming on to his bus bra less, barefooted, and still in her pjs. Later my neighbor called to laugh at me because of course my front door was wide open during all of the chaos. She heard screaming and thought there had been some kind of an accident, perhaps a child hit by the bus. So she ran out of her house only to realize that the screaming was coming from my house and that everything was fine. I'm glad she didn't stick around to see the bra less, barefooted, pj-ed run down the street. Being the lovely neighbor that she is, she didn't only call to laugh at me she also offered to take Gracie to preschool for me. Which may have saved me the only shred of sanity that I have left for the day. Did I mention that I was bra less. Barefooted. And still in my pjs. Yea, good morning.

Being Crafty

Signs of Spring

Tulips from Sam.

Answers from Gracie

1. What is something mom always says to you? "I love you"
2. What makes mom happy "When I give you a kiss"
3. What makes mom sad? "When I punch you in the face"
4. How does your mom make you laugh? "tickle torturing me"
5. What was your mom like as a child? "She was just like me"
6. How old is your mom? "30 or 33"
7. How tall is your mom? "This big" (with hands spread far apart)
8. What is her favorite thing to watch on TV? "The biggest loser"
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? "go on the computer"
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? "Movie Star" (good answer)
11. What is your mom really good at? "Taking pictures"
12. What is your mom not very good at? "playing the guitar"
13. What does your mom do for her job? "clean the kitchen"
14. What is your mom's favorite food? "spaghetti"
15. What makes you proud of your mom? "You make lunch"
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? "Dora"
17. What do you and your mom do together? "Watch TV"
18. How are you and your mom the same? "we both like spaghetti"
19. How are you and your mom different? "our hair"
20. How do you know your mom loves you? "she gives hugs and kisses to me"
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? "sleeping with him"
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? "to her friends house"

Changes?

For those of you who are wondering about the changes mentioned in the post below, because of the difficult economic time we are living in and the continual tanking of the market, Sam has had to take a 30% cut in salary. Every one in his office is taking major cuts. The cuts are meant to be temporary. How temporary? Only time will tell. These are difficult times for almost everyone so I know we are not in this alone and there are definitely those who have been hit harder than we have, so I am trying to stay positive. Sometimes it works and sometimes, not so much, but I know that we are very blessed in so many ways and I trust that our Heavenly Father will take care of us. So that's it, nothing catastrophic, just stressful. We are given this trails to force us to grow and I'm feeling some growing pains, but that's life. We have our health and our family, our friends, and our faith, so we're doing pretty good.

There's no time like the present

Well, how fast things can change. Due to some unexpected changes I've decided that it would be a good idea to get the photog biz rolling sooner rather than later. I'm actually really exited. It's going to be a challenge but I am up for it. I am actually grateful for it. I fell like over the last year I have been being prepared for this very moment and now it's time to take action.
I have learned so much from my friend Shay, and I'm not talking about all the help she has given me with photography, although I appreciate that help more that she can know. There are other things that I have learned from her that I appreciate even more. One of those things is how strong women are and that being a strong woman is a good thing. Another thing is that together a group of women is stronger than the sum of it's parts. And last but certainly not least when we help each other out and offer support, what goes around comes around, 10-fold. I'm actually embarrassed that I didn't figure these things out on my own, but I didn't, so thank you Shay.
So on that note I have an idea. I haven't completely thought it through and there may be a more affective way to go about this, but here is the idea. I've added a button on my blog to a supper cute new biz started by a super talented girl I know. Okay, it's my sister-in-law, but she really is very talented. I would love to add more buttons to help get the word out for any of my "sistas" who are trying to turn their passion into a biz. So if you have a biz and want to get the word out in this way or it you would like to help out some amazing ladies by posting their buttons to your blog let me know. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this. so I will have more info to come.
In the mean time I am taking appointmentss for photo shoots. Wish me luck!
Check out my photo blog for rates, contact information and a special offer.